Current issues in economics

World Cup – the economics of faking an injury.

As the World Cup enters the quarter final stage we have seen the same old tricks played by players to try and influence the decision of the referee.

France’s Lucas Hernandez admitted to flopping in France’s 2-1 win against Australia in an attempt to get Australian midfielder Mathew Leckie sent off.

Spanish defender Gerard Piqué accused Portugal’s captain Cristiano Ronaldo of exaggerating a fall to secure a penalty kick in their 3-3 nail-biter. Piqué said Ronaldo has a habit of “throwing himself to the ground.”

Neymar rolling around in what seemed to be excruciating pain when there was contact on his ankle and that was on the sideline. What would he have done if it was in the penalty area and Brazil were 0-1 down?

That being said it was hoped that the VAR system would start to see this sort of tactic removed from the ‘beautiful game’. Some of the techniques of faking an injury are below – HT to Kanchan Bandyopadhyay.

The Economist has looked at this area and I thought that I would delve a little deeper. There is no doubt that if you study the costs and benefits of faking an injury there are certain sports where it is perceived as quite worthwhile – i.e. the benefits outweigh the costs. Cost benefit analysis is part of Unit 3 of the AS Level course. What is cost-benefit analysis (CBA)?

Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) refers to estimating the private and external benefits of an investment project – airport, rail link, road etc against the private and external costs. Once these costs/benefits are established a decision is made as to whether the project should go ahead.

CBA can be applied to any decision you make and below is a table outlining the cost and benefit of faking a peanalty or injury in particular sports. I see the benefit in soccer of diving in the box and being awarded a penalty outweigh the costs by a significant amount. Firstly, if the appeal for a penalty is turned down it is very unlikely that the referee will administer any punishment to the player faking a foul. In too many cases they are happy to let the game play on as they feel under so much pressure anyway for not awarding it. Whilst in ice-hockey a suspension of either 2 or 4 minutes has acted as a deterrent to those caught “embellishing” . I have put some values in the end column which will no doubt encourage a lot of discussion – remember Warren Gatland, the Welsh coach in the Rugby World Cup 2011, considered informing a player to fake an injury so there would be no pushing in the scrums. This was after their captain, Sam Warburton, was sent off early in semi-final against France.

However, with the perceived benefits of diving in soccer it does encourage players to even practice this activity. This reminded me of a great advertisement run by the Guardian Newspaper for the Euro 2004 Soccer Cup – see below